Bulfinch: Journalists are human

That simple truth has been part of my mindset for I don't know how long. Probably from a very young age. Certainly since my days as a University of New Hampshire journalism student.

In my more scholarly days, in my more green days and in my days spent as a student of the trade, I became convinced that my belief that everyone has a story, was, in fact, correct.

Very rarely during my professional career have I felt the need to defend or justify what my journalism colleagues and I do on a daily basis.

This week, however, was different.

UNH Professor Lisa Miller taught me that not only does everyone have a story, but their stories are worthy of being told.

And you may be the only one and the last one to ever tell it.

Read that sentence again.

That's the part that really stuck with me.

On Saturday, a day off, and minutes after I'd sat down to enjoy a cold brew, I received information about a possible murder situation from a respected source.

I immediately, without finishing said brew, paid my portion of the tab and headed to a crime scene unfolding in Madbury.

Like many journalists, I'm an adrenaline junkie. I cannot turn this off just because it's a Saturday or my day off. It pervades many aspects of my life... for better or worse.

But it's not always for the reasons readers or the general public might assume.

When I was 24, I wrote, with the help of my mother, my nana's obituary.

It was the last thing written about her.

When my grandmother on my father's side had a 90th birthday bash in October 2012 at The 99 Restaurant in Reading, Mass., I spent a good portion of that day helping connect my reporter colleagues in Dover to law enforcement officials so they could cover the Lizzi Marriott murder and subsequent arrest of Seth Mazzaglia.

My father hounded me the whole time to put down my phone and stop scribbling notes on napkins. My mother told him to, “Hush up and let her work.”

That day wound up being the last I ever spent with my mother. Less than two days later she died of heart failure.

So four days shy of my 30th birthday, I sat down at a local pub, ordered a beer and penned my mother's obituary.

And I cried. A lot.

So while I may not be able to feel the sense of grief and loss that the family of murdered Madbury teen Aaron Wilkinson is enduring right now, I can understand it. And I can empathize with it.

Journalists are supposed to be objective. I believe I am.

But I'm also human. And despite my best efforts, in the name of objectivity, to switch off that humanity to do my job, it creeps out at times.

I have no children, so I can't claim to know how Aaron's family is feeling. But rest assured that I — as well as many others in Foster's newsroom — understand their sense of grief and loss as much as anyone.

I've been writing about Aaron's brutal murder all week. My stories have prompted plenty of feedback, both positive and negative.

The most common question comes from readers wondering why I would even want to continue covering this story “day after day.”

The answer is simple: These words scribed by me may be the last written about Aaron.

Journalists often attend funerals and memorials without batting an eyelash or shedding a tear. Other times we cry like babies as we're reminded of something sentimental. Or because the tragedy of the story hits us harder than expected.

Sometimes we just can't control our emotions.

That's because behind the press pass, behind the notebook and behind the lens, we are only human.

I hope that reality is not lost on readers as we continue to strive to just “tell the story.”